Successful cooperation with Overijssel Province of the Netherlands began already before the establishment of the North Vidzeme Waste Management Organization, during the project development stage with the support from the Ministry of Environment (in 1998 Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development).

As the result of this cooperation we learned about the Netherlands’s experience in waste management during our visit to Holland. Since 1998 there have been regular training sessions for ZAAO employees regarding communication skills, work with clients, intercommunication culture, we have elaborated a joint business plan. In 2000/2001 a project of experience exchange was completed in the framework of Leonardo da Vinci programme.

While implementing this project waste sorting was started in North Vidzeme. In June, 2003, the fifth anniversary of ZAAO and Overijssel Province cooperation and the tenth anniversary of the cooperation between the governments of Latvia and the Netherlands in the sphere of environment were marked with an international conference.